Zhan_Petrov

WORLD PREMIERE SCREENING + CONVERSATION
WITH DIRECTOR ZHAN PETROV AND PRODUCER ROB NILSSON

Spanning decades of outtakes, behind-the-scenes chaos, and intimate personal history, THE WAY THINGS SEEM TO BE is a sweeping portrait of maverick filmmaker, poet, and painter Rob Nilsson.

Nilsson is the first American filmmaker to win both the Camera d’Or at Cannes for NORTHERN LIGHTS (1979) and the Grand Prize at Sundance for HEAT AND SUNLIGHT (1988). Over the course of his career, he has directed 45 feature films, building one of the most uncompromising bodies of work in American independent cinema.

Directed by Zhan Petrov, this documentary becomes both a portrait and a masterclass—diving deep into Nilsson’s groundbreaking Direct Action Cinema, an improvisational, jazz-like method where performers draw from their own lives through exercises influenced by Wilhelm Reich, Stanislavski, and Uechi-Ryu Karate.

The film travels across continents and decades: from Nilsson’s first feature shot in Nigeria, to his early painting studio in Equatorial Guinea; from his birthplace in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, to music halls in Moscow, England, and Wales, where John Cale and Brian Eno create a record. It follows Nilsson to Ukraine, to the village tied to Leon Trotsky and the site of a 1942 Nazi pogrom, and onward to Israel, where he interviews the last survivor. Along the way, young artists in Jordan, Japan, South Africa, and Italy make Direct Action films with him, while Nilsson reads poetry on East Bay railroad tracks.

Petrov anchors the film with insights from an extraordinary roster of voices, including Stacy Keach, Mstyslav Chernov, Al Nelson, Bobby Roth, Mark Fishkin, Nancy Hayes, Dan Zastrow, and many more.

THE WAY THINGS SEEM TO BE traces the uncompromising path of a visionary artist and reveals what it looks like when someone gives his entire life to art.

Director: Zhan Petrov
Country: USA
Year: 2026
Runtime: 224 min.

This program will be presented in two parts with an intermission.

Tickets:
rafaelfilm.cafilm.org/the-way...

#TheWayThingsSeemToBe #ZhanPetrov #RobNilsson #WorldPremiere #Documentary #IndependentFilm #DirectActionCinema #CaliforniaFilmInstitute #RafaelFilmCenter

Skip the Carousel

1 2 3 4

2 months ago | [YT] | 0

Zhan_Petrov

“I Felt Like I Was There”
A reflection on Mstyslav Chernov’s film

I saw 2000 METERS TO ANDRIIVKA in San Rafael. And after it ended, I just sat there. Didn’t really want to talk. Didn’t really want to move.

Someone asked me what I felt. And the only thing I could say was — I felt like I was there.

I felt like I had just been inside it. In that trench. With those guys. Hearing what they hear, seeing what they see. Not from a distance. Right there.

This film doesn’t use tricks. It doesn’t pull you in with music or cuts. It just shows things the way they are.

There’s one part that stuck with me when Mstyslav talked about the land.

He said he used to play there as a child. That his grandmother told him stories about his great-grandfather fighting in those same woods during the Second World War. And now, he’s back — walking through that same forest, except now it’s burned, mined, destroyed.

And it’s not abstract anymore. It’s not “over there.” It’s something real. Something that can happen to anyone.

That’s what I took from it.

10 months ago | [YT] | 0